Egypt, once the largest country in Africa with an area of 3.5 million square kilometers, why is it divided into three parts?

Egypt, a country with glorious ancestors and bumpy reality.

As one of the four ancient civilizations in the world, Egypt is also the first country with human civilization, and its ancestors have a glorious history. As early as 3200 BC, the first slave country appeared in Egypt, and many pyramids in Egypt were full of many mysteries, which made people curious.

Of course, this is only the glory of Egyptian ancestors. Only China, the four ancient civilizations, is endless. The other three civilizations have long been cut off, and the people on the land have changed round after round.

The modern Republic of Egypt is a very young country, which was not established until 1953. In fact, before that, Egypt was the largest country in Africa, covering an area of 3.5 million square kilometers.

Why is there only 6,543,800 square kilometers left in Egypt now? Because Egypt was once divided into three parts.

Egypt and Sudan are both countries nurtured by the Nile, which runs from south to north and is even called "twins". This is because Egypt and Sudan have been closely related and ruled each other since ancient times.

In 3200 BC, menes unified the tribes and small countries in Egypt and established the first dynasty in Egypt. As the earliest civilization, it naturally has the first-Mover advantage over other regions. The ancient Egyptians went upstream along the Nile and incorporated Sudan into the empire. From about 2800 BC to 1000 BC, Sudan has always been a part of ancient Egypt.

When Egypt came to the 18 dynasty, the Pharaoh went south to recruit Nubians, who had nothing to do with Nubian smartphones. When the country is big, it is naturally inconvenient to manage, so Pharaoh divided the conquered area into two parts, north and south, and managed them separately. Napata is the center in the south, which is Kailebai in northern Sudan today, also known as "Kushi".

After thousands of years of vicissitudes, Kush gradually separated from Egypt and became an independent kingdom. In 750 BC, he conquered Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, and then ruled the entire Nile Valley, becoming the 25th dynasty in Egyptian history.

From here, we can find that Egypt and Sudan are two countries separated by a river and have very similar cultures.

Only with the rise of Assyrians, the weak Kuxi kingdom had to return to Sudan, and in the later period, the Kuxi kingdom gradually became a culture centered on Sudanese culture and gradually lost contact with Egyptian civilization.

The soil brought by the periodic floods of the Nile nourished the ancient Egyptians, but this fertile soil also attracted the covet of others. In 525 BC, the 26th dynasty of Egypt was destroyed by Persians, which also meant the end of the ancient Egyptian era. Since then, Persians, Greeks and Romans have stepped onto the historical stage of Egypt.

In the 7th century A.D., Arabs rising in the desert marched into Egypt, and in 640 they defeated the garrison of the Eastern Roman Empire and seized this fertile land. Since then, Egypt has started the road of Islamization. By the12nd century, Arabic had been widely used in Egypt and it was completely converted to Islam. Except for a few pyramids and statues, there are no traces of ancient Egyptian civilization that lasted for thousands of years.

Egypt has been Islamized, and Sudan can't escape. Finally, in the13rd century, Sudan was completely conquered by Arabs, and Sudan and Egypt were once again under the same civilization.

Sudan in the modern sense originated from 1820, when Egypt was annexed by Ottoman Turkey. 1820, Mohammed Ali, the governor of the Ottoman Empire, known as the "father of modernization" in Egypt, sent troops to invade Sudan to alleviate the financial pressure and population burden caused by years of war. Sudan became a vassal country of Egypt and a place for Egypt to plunder ivory and slaves.

Although Egypt is nominally a province of Osman, it established Pasha in Egypt, which is in charge of the military and political power in Egypt. Due to the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the blending of Britain, France and other western countries, the Ottoman Empire's suzerainty over Egypt gradually weakened. By the reign of Ali, Egypt had achieved de facto independence.

From 1820, Sudan and Egypt became the same country again, which is why at the end of 19, the Egyptian army refused to send troops to help Britain suppress the Mahdi uprising in Sudan, because "they were unwilling to oppose the Sudanese brothers and people for the same enemy-European capitalists".

Egypt, located at the intersection of East and West, has long been coveted by western countries. So during the Great Revolution, Napoleon was sent to invade Egypt, although the country had not stabilized at that time.

In the process of western colonization, Britain should participate in whatever France likes. After Napoleon left, the British came and finally became the "protectorate" of Britain in 1882.

Now you are my "protectorate", and everything about you is mine, including Sudan. 1899 65438+1October 19. Britain forced Egypt to sign the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on Co-management of Sudan, which was nominally under Egypt's jurisdiction, but even Egypt was a "protectorate". What rights does it have on the Sudan issue? Egypt not only has no right to speak in Sudan, but also bears the military and administrative expenses of the British army in Sudan.

In order to cut off the connection between Sudan and Egypt and realize the long-term occupation of Sudan, the British drew a line between Egypt and Sudan, based on the Egyptian territory in Muhammad Ali's time, crossing the 22 nd latitude, Sudan and Egypt made a clean break, which also laid the groundwork for the division of South Sudan.

Since the opening of the Suez Canal, Egypt's strategic value to Britain has become more important. After all, India is connected with the East. However, the outbreak of two world wars gave Egypt the opportunity of independence.

During World War I, Britain was beaten to death, and the whole Arab world in the Middle East was demanding independence, and Egypt was no exception. 19 19 Charul, leader of the Egyptian independence movement, asked the British High Commissioner in Egypt to negotiate on the issue of Egyptian independence and asked to attend the Paris Peace Conference. Not only was he rejected, but he was also arrested and imprisoned. It caused large-scale protests and riots in Egypt, forcing Britain to reconsider its policy toward Egypt and finally allowing Egypt to become independent in 1922.

Although Britain declared Egypt an independent country in 1922, the power of national defense and diplomacy was still in Britain's hands, and it reserved the right to station troops in the Suez Canal area. In fact, the kingdom of Egypt at this time was an out-and-out pro-British dynasty, and Egypt had just changed from a colony to a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country.

After World War II, Britain has become a second-rate country in the world.

1948 to 1949, the first middle east war broke out. Originally, Britain strongly supported Arab countries in order to restore its influence in the Middle East. However, under the intimidation of the United States, Britain not only banned the sale of weapons to Arab countries, but also withdrew its officers sent to the Arab army, which made Egypt very angry. After all, according to the Anglo-Egyptian Alliance Treaty signed in 1936,

Egyptians were very angry at Britain's betrayal of the alliance, and even the pro-British dynasty in Egypt hated it. Finally, in 1952, under the leadership of a young officer, Nasser, the Egyptian army and civilians overthrew the pro-British government and established the Republic of Egypt.

In fact, Sudan and Egypt still belong to the same country in name until now.

When the revolution broke out in Egypt, it also triggered the germination of Sudanese nationalism. However, before the July Revolution of 1952, no king or political party in Egypt was willing to compromise with Sudan, insisting that Egypt and Sudan were brotherly countries and should be integrated. It was not until the July Revolution led by Nasser that the new Egyptian government changed its attitude towards Sudan. The first president Najib advocated giving Sudan the right to autonomy and self-determination within the scope of complete freedom.

Under the impetus of Egypt, Britain was forced to sign the Sudan autonomy agreement with Egypt in February 12 and 1953. It is stipulated that Sudan can establish a parliament and a national government during the three-year transition period, and the agreement between Britain and Egypt on the management of Sudan will be abolished on 1955 12 3 1. 1 956 65438+1October1,Sudan officially became independent.

Sudan's independence suddenly reduced Egypt's territory by 2.5 million square kilometers, leaving only 6,543.8+0,000 square kilometers.

It was in this year that the Second Middle East War broke out, and the Soviet Union announced that it would launch a nuclear strike against Britain and France if they did not cease fire. The United States ordered Britain and France to cease fire within 12 hours. Under the pressure of the United States and the Soviet Union, Britain and France had to withdraw their troops, and Egypt completely recovered the Suez Canal.

After independence, Sudan, with an area of 2.5 million square kilometers, has undoubtedly become the largest country in Africa. However, since independence, Sudan has planted the seeds of division.

The contradiction between North and South Sudan has a long history. As early as 1820, after the Egyptian Governor Ali conquered Sudan, in order to plunder wealth, he began to organize Arabs in northern Sudan to "hunt" blacks as slaves in various tribes in South Sudan. The income from selling black slaves even became an important fiscal revenue in Egypt, which also made many Arabs in the north get rich quickly. However, as a result, many black tribes in the south are ruined and their wives and children are separated, which can not help but make the blacks in the south bear a grudge against the Arabs in the north, and the ethnic contradictions between the north and the south in Sudan arise.

1899, Sudan was ruled by Britain and Egypt. In order to destroy the traditional tribal ruling system in the south, Britain divided South Sudan into three provinces in 1902. Different from Arabic, the official language of the north, the British vigorously promoted English in South Sudan and made English the official language of the three southern provinces. North and South Sudan have different rest days. The rest day in the north is Friday, and the colonial government set the rest day in the south as Friday. All kinds of measures taken by the British are creating differences between the north and the south in order to achieve the goal of divide and rule.

At the end of World War I, in the face of the increasingly awakening nationalism in the colonies, the British, as troublemakers in the world, had a unique trick, just like 1947 carved up India. The British colonial government formulated a set of divide-and-rule policies in Sudan. For example, from 192 1, the governors of the three southern provinces no longer attend the annual governors' meeting in Khartoum, the capital; According to the business license of 1925, no one can enter the southern provinces for business without permission; Encourage Sudanese whose ancestral home is in the north to leave the three southern provinces, move the tribes deeply influenced by Islamic culture in the south to the north, and set up a "forbidden zone" between the northern and southern tribes; Persuade southern tribes to give up Arabic names and costumes and ban Arab customs; Vigorously spread Christianity in the south.

Under the influence of British customs, the number of people who believe in Christianity and Islam in the south is roughly the same, while most people in the north believe in Islam. What's more, the whole Sudan has no national identity. Although Arabs are the largest ethnic group in Sudan, most of them are concentrated in the north.

After the end of the Second World War, the national liberation movements in Egypt and Sudan rose day by day. Britain has realized that its time is running out. Since it is not available, it is better to give you a stir. On the one hand, Britain encouraged southerners to demand the partition of the north and the south, on the other hand, when negotiating with Egypt on the Sudan issue, it explicitly demanded the recognition of the special power of the British governor over the southern provinces, which led to the South Sudan issue.

1953, the Sudanese autonomous government was established. With the support of Britain, the representative of the south demanded a federal system in the north and south of Sudan, which was rejected by the north. One year before Sudan's independence, under the instigation of Britain, the black garrison in the south launched a mutiny to demand autonomy, which eventually formed a confrontation between the north and the south, and the first civil war broke out in Sudan.

1972, Sudan, which fought for more than ten years, finally ceased fire and signed the Addis Ababa agreement in Ethiopia, which eased the contradiction between the north and the south.

This makes oil exploration, which has been confined to northern Sudan, go deep into southern Sudan, and large-scale high-yield oil and gas fields have been discovered in the south. Because Sudan's oil processing enterprises and ports are all in the north, the oil from the south must be transported to the north for processing and export. South Sudanese believe that this is the north plundering the wealth of the south. Finally, 1983, the civil war resumed.

The civil war killed at least 2 million people and displaced 4 million people, forcing many oil companies to evacuate, which made Sudan, which was originally rich in oil resources, only look forward to oil and sigh.

The painful price has made both North and South Sudan yearn for peace. After 22 years of fighting and negotiation, the North and South Sudan finally reached the Comprehensive Peace Agreement on June 5th+10/October 9th, 2005.

According to the agreement, after the six-year transition period, South Sudan held a referendum on 20 1 1, and more than 98% people chose independence.

20 1 1 On July 9, 2008, South Sudan officially became independent and became the193rd Member of the United Nations five days later.

With the independence of South Sudan, the area of Sudan has decreased from 2.5 million square kilometers to 6.5438+0.88 million square kilometers, ranking third in Africa.

The independence of South Sudan subverts the principle that the borders of African countries cannot be changed, and gradually opens the door to the division of African countries.

During the colonial period, all countries on the African continent except Ethiopia were colonized by western countries. Regardless of Africa's history, humanities and religion, European colonists forcibly incorporated completely different regions into the same colony, which led to territorial disputes and ethnic separation tendencies in many African countries. 1963 In Ethiopia, independent African countries formulated the Charter of the Organization of African Unity, declaring that the national borders after independence, no matter how unjust and unreasonable, could not change the borders established during the colonial period.

The independence of South Sudan undoubtedly provides a realistic example for the existing ethnic and regional separatism in Africa. Nearly one-third of African countries are more or less inclined to separate, and South Sudan may be the first domino.

However, the independence of South Sudan has not brought peace and development to South Sudan. 20 13 Not only did civil war break out in South Sudan, but the oil problem between South Sudan and Sudan has always been a thorny issue.

The people of South Sudan want to become the African version of the United Arab Emirates by oil, but South Sudan is a landlocked country and lacks oil processing capacity and oil export channels and ports. Although the two countries reached an oil agreement on 20 12, there are too many agreements reached between the north and the south, most of which have not been seriously implemented, and it is impossible to solve the oil dispute between the two countries in a short time.

From 3.5 million square kilometers of "Great Egypt" to today's split into three, it is closely related to western colonists.

Today, Egypt has a population of 6,543.8 billion and a GDP of 363 billion US dollars. Sudan has a population of 44.35 million and a GDP of 32.5 billion US dollars. The population of South Sudan is130,000, and its GDP is about 4.5 billion US dollars. If the three countries do not separate and become a unified country, it will be a big African country with an area of 3.5 million square kilometers, a population of over 654.38+0.5 billion and a GDP of over 400 billion US dollars. Compared with today, its comprehensive strength is definitely not in the same breath.